The venue for KB’s last meeting before she finally retired was the sitting room of my grandmother’s house in Hexham. My last visit to the house was in 1992, but little had changed in 20 years. I tested the comfort of the knobbly green sofa, padded across the dark green swirly hall carpet, opened and closed the glass porch door, and peered into each of the other rooms. The only differences were in the size of the hall and the spare bedroom, and the addition of a further bedroom where the garage had once been.

Back in the sitting room once more, I was just coming to terms with the enormity of the challenge of stepping into KB’s shoes when a small South American academic reminded me that I had agreed to co-supervise Carlos, one of his PhD students. This was yet another commitment that I had forgotten about and probably wouldn’t be able to honour.

Someone noticed my evident distress and threw his arms round me in comfort. I thought this was rather unprofessional: colleagues did not normally behave in this way. Then I discovered that this “someone” was a gatecrasher. My ex-boyfriend ST had wangled an invitation to the meeting. He had rightly concluded that the easiest way to grab any time with me was to track me down at work.